Obama: 'New beginning' with Muslims

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By Christina Bellantoni

CAIRO | Seeking no less than a restart of relations with the Islamic world, President Obama on Thursday conceded past wrongs, quoted from the Koran and even invoked his full name - all in an appeal to Muslims from Indonesia to Morocco to unite around common ideals of rights, freedom, security and respect.

In calling for a "new beginning," he singled out some Islamic nations as examples of religious tolerance, he delivered a stern lecture to Holocaust deniers, doubters of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Palestinian terrorists, and he harked back to the glory of Islamic civilizations through the centuries.

Using his 55-minute speech - the longest of his young presidency - to about 2,500 people at Cairo University, Mr. Obama said that rather than a fundamental disagreement, the U.S. has always held deep respect for and good will toward Islam, dating back to one of the nation's earliest documents, the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli.

"We have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world; we seek a world where extremists no longer threaten our people and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected," Mr. Obama said.

The speech, which made good on a campaign promise to deliver a major address from a Muslim country, was translated into 13 languages and spread via e-mail and Web video around the globe - an effort to turn technology, which has been a powerful recruiting tool for radical Islamic terrorists, to a tool of outreach and influence for the U.S.

The president weighed in on tough issues that divide the Middle East, saying the U.S. "does not accept the legitimacy" of Israel's settlements in Palestinian territory and all but accusing Palestinians of cowardice when terrorists "shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus."

He also balanced acknowledgment of the U.S. role in the 1953 coup that toppled Iran's democratically elected government with a call for Iran to forgo developing nuclear weapons, saying pursuing atomic arms could spark "a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."

Mr. Obama also avoided some thorny subjects. He did not use the word "terrorist," and he did not take on the human rights record of his host country, Egypt. He never mentioned Osama bin Laden, though he did mention al Qaeda three times, saying in no uncertain terms that the terrorist organization was responsible for killing nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

"These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with," Mr. Obama said.

He warned that allowing differences to define relations between Muslims and the United States gives ammunition to a small but potent minority of violent extremists.